The Airline That Loses Bags, Cancels Flights

In Latest Rankings, American Places Last in Customer Service; Alaska Tops List, Delta Makes a Turnaround

By

Scott McCartney

January 5, 2012

Dallas

Tough times in Big D: First, the Dallas Cowboys missed the NFL playoffs (again). Now, locally based American Airlines has ranked dead last in customer service in the annual Middle Seat analysis of major domestic carriers (again).

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Dallas-Fort Worth-based American Airlines has ranked dead last in customer service in the annual Middle Seat analysis of major domestic carriers.

United Airlines got sacked as well, showing that mergers can create big customer woes. United and Continental Airlines, when combined, scored almost as poorly as American.

The best-performing carrier last year was Alaska Airlines, the smallest among the seven major U.S. airlines. And in a surprise showing, Delta Air LinesDAL0.70% scored a big turnaround, placing second in 2011 compared with ninth in 2010.

The Middle Seat scorecard ranks major carriers each year on a number of key measures important to travelers: on-time arrivals, long delays, canceled flights, mishandled bags, passengers bumped from flights and complaints filed with the Department of Transportation. Data come from DOT and FlightStats.com, a flight-tracking service that collects real-time flight information from airlines, airports and the Federal Aviation Administration. (See the 2010 Airline Scorecard.)

Alaska, which launched an operational overhaul in 2007 after several years of dismal reliability, was first among major airlines in on-time arrivals. The carrier has set internal standards: There are 50 different check points on a timeline for each departure, with data collected on each one. Flight attendants have to be on board 45 minutes before scheduled departure; customer-service agents board the first passenger 40 minutes before departure, and 90% of passengers need to be boarded 10 minutes before departure. What time the fuel truck hooks up and what time it disconnects its hose are measured. When flights arrive, the time the belt-loader pulls up to the plane is tracked. The cargo door is supposed to be opened three minutes after arrival; the first bag needs to be dropped on the carousel before 15 minutes after arrival.

"There are so many moving parts. You just can't tell people to get the airplane out on time," said Ben Minicucci, Alaska's chief operating officer.

Delta engineered a major operational turnaround last year. In 2010, Delta was second-worst in punctuality and baggage handling among rival airlines and it had the highest rates of canceled flights and consumer complaints filed with the DOT. For 2011, Delta ranked in the top three in five of six categories.

In the past two years, Delta opened maintenance operations in nine cities that aren't hubs for the airline, such as Miami, Portland, Ore., and Philadelphia, to keep more of its fleet ready to fly. Once it was done integrating with Northwest Airlines, Delta invested in new baggage systems in Atlanta, plus new technology in its operations control center and retraining for customer-service workers.

"There are a lot of side benefits to running a good, clean operation," said David Holtz, Delta's vice president of operations control.

American, which filed for bankruptcy-court reorganization in November, has struggled with its operation for several years. For the past five years, American has been among the worst three airlines at on-time performance, a key measure of an airline's operation since it impacts mishandled bags, bumped passengers and even canceled flights and customer complaints.

Last year, American was worst among major carriers at baggage handling and had the highest percentage of canceled flights. The rate at which American canceled flights was 70% higher than at United, Delta and the industry average for major airlines, which the DOT defines as those with more than $1 billion in operating revenue.

ENLARGE

A scene from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in November.
Getty Images

American, which replaced its top operations executive last month, says its aging fleet has led to increased cancellations because of more mechanical breakdowns. In addition, American said its hub cities seemed particularly plagued last year. A severe thunderstorm season last spring in the South took a toll, along with a tornado in St. Louis, a fuel-farm fire in Miami and a hailstorm in Dallas that damaged 50 jets.

The carrier has placed large orders for new replacement jets and stepped up baggage scanning to improve accuracy. It now hopes bankruptcy reorganization will allow the same kind of cost cutting and work-rule changes that have boosted operations at other airlines, said Jon Snook, American's vice president of operations planning and performance.

"There's no question cost has impacted on our ability to invest in dependability," he said.

United and Continental merged in 2010, but the two carriers still operate on separate reservation systems. Customers like Jay Gould complain they sometimes get lost in the gap between the two airlines. Mr. Gould, a lawyer in San Francisco and New York, is a top-level frequent flier who pays for membership in United's airport clubs. Yet, he got kicked out of a Continental lounge, where privileges are reciprocal. After 45 minutes and a flurry of phone calls, he was allowed back in.

A United spokesman said the airline expects complaints to drop when it moves to one passenger system within a few months.

JetBlue AirwaysJBLU0.52% had both the most-frequent delays and the longest delays. Nearly one out of every eight jetBlue flights was at least 45 minutes late last year, according to DOT and FlightStats data. The average delay for a jetBlue flight that ran late was 65 minutes, according to DOT data for the first 10 months of the year.

JetBlue says the New York and Boston areas, which are departing or arriving points for 73% of all its flights, got slammed last year with a few severe weather events that led to long delays and canceled flights. Hurricane Irene and severe snowstorms in January and October hurt performance.

"We don't have hubs in more favorable weather areas to balance it out," said Rob Maruster, jetBlue's chief operating officer.

Southwest Airlines,LUV-0.30% the only major airline that doesn't charge fees to check two pieces of luggage, had the second-worst rate of mishandled bags, better than only American. Bags fly free, but they don't always get there. Excluding AirTran Airways, which Southwest acquired in May, Southwest would have been the industry's worst at baggage handling. In addition to added volume, Southwest's baggage operation has struggled with complexity of connecting lots of different flights in lots of different cities.

Southwest said it made a major push to improve its on-time reliability in the second half of 2011. This year, baggage gets a major SWAT team improvement effort, said Greg Wells, senior vice president of operations. Currently, the carrier is studying use of hand-held scanners to improve accuracy in routing bags.

Still, Southwest customers aren't complaining. The airline had the fewest complaints per passenger, according to DOT stats.

The overall rate of cancellations among major carriers was unchanged in 2011 from 2010 at 1.4% of all flights, according to DOT data covering 10 months and FlightStats data for November and December.

Corrections & Amplifications Southwest Airlines had the third-best on-time performance in 2011 among major airlines, according to data from the Department of Transportation and FlightStats.com, followed in order by US Airways, United Airlines and American Airlines. A chart accompanying an earlier version of this article incorrectly showed US Airways ahead of Southwest and American ahead of United.

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